


Cherry

by gaydolokhov



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Feelings Realization, Fluff, Happy Ending, House Cleaning, M/M, POV Richard Papen, aka richard papen., repressed richard papen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:20:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24174253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaydolokhov/pseuds/gaydolokhov
Summary: Richard and Francis clean house.
Relationships: Francis Abernathy/Richard Papen
Comments: 9
Kudos: 79





	Cherry

**Author's Note:**

> i literally haven't written fanfic in almost a decade and have never published anything . ever . but i've reread tsh twice in quarantine and i'm going crazy. this sprang from a random sentence that my brain generated one morning. and i love francis abernathy

With a start, I woke. The devil-red numbers on my clock were glowing in my face. 2:12. In my dazed fog, I chuckled and remarked (out loud? in my head? who knows) upon the significance of the number- the same backwards and forwards. A double, a single, a double. With another shock, I realized that it was bright outside. 2:12 in the afternoon. _Shit_ , I thought. I had missed all of my classes. Not only that, but I was also in the process of missing my weekly coffee date with Francis (strictly platonic, of course, I would tell myself every week).

I was already preparing myself for his characteristic flurry of cold rebuffs peppered in our upcoming conversation that would consist mainly of my apologizing profusely when I heard a gentle but sharp knock at my door. I recognized it as his immediately. Jumping out of bed and only pausing briefly to tug at my mountain of cowlicks, I padded swiftly across my cluttered floor to fling open the door. I sighed, “Shit, Francis. I’m so sorry. I oversle-“

He put his hand up to stop my defense. “Richard, you idiot. It’s fine. You didn’t show up to class. Of course I know you overslept. I didn’t even bother to go to the café; I just came here instead because I wanted to see you anyway. Is that… a bagel?” He sidled past me and picked up a half-eaten, slightly-green, once-cinnamon-raisin bagel from my bedside table, adjusted his pince-nez, and promptly returned it to its resting place, dusting his hands off with barely-concealed disgust.

“Yuck, Richard, do you need me to help you clean? We won’t need to do much, just take out some of this… trash…” (here his eye caught a myriad of wrappers beside my bed) “…and maybe… disinfect a few surfaces. We’ll be done before you know it.”

“Uh,” I said, deeply embarrassed- I could feel my face burning with a rush of blood red that would put the numbers on my clock to shame. “It’s fine, Francis, real-“

Again, he held up his elegant pale hand to interrupt me, more forcefully this time. “Richard. seriously. I’m offering. You’re not being a burden.”

Shame. Anxiety. A slight smile creeping onto my face. Francis’s sudden appearance and soothing words (despite the fact that they had followed such obvious disapproval) created a rather strange mix of feelings within me. These feelings always seemed to bubble to the surface whenever he was close.

Fortunately for Francis, my flaring affections subsided enough for me to join him on this new excursion. It proved to be more of a task than he had thought, and he took no pains to hide it.

“God, Richard, there’s mold behind your desk! What the hell?”

And so we cleaned. Pamphlets and gum wrappers and loose papers. And, to my horror and humiliation, significant amounts of mold and grime and more old food.

At one point, we were on separate sides of my room- he at the window, crouching over the dirty sill, and I on hands and knees, scrubbing the baseboard with vigor. I savored moments like these, just he and I, quiet but not awkward, just existing, together.

A few minutes into my moulding-cleaning-induced trance, I heard an incredulous snort from near the window. I turned and saw that he was grasping something that I couldn’t quite see but struck fear within me nonetheless. “Uh… Richard?” Another laugh. “What the hell is _this_?”

With acute self-consciousness and dread, I sped over to snatch from him what I then saw was a rather large shirt. Unfolding it (Francis still tittering away), I recognized a smiling Marlo Thomas on its front, complete with bright pink lettering that read “She’s everything that every girl should be!” and adorned with diamonds, daisies, and snowflakes. The _That Girl_ shirt that I had begged my mother to buy me for Christmas when I was ten years old. My father had refused to let me wear such a “girly” article of clothing in public, but my mother still wanted to give me the one present I had asked for that year, so she purchased it in an adult XXL on the premise that I would never be able to grow into it. As I opened it that Christmas morning, my father had given me his strongest warning look, and my mother one of nearly-adequate remorse. The following year, I would put on my regular pajamas to tell them good night, hurry back to my room to change into my beloved Marlo shirt to sleep, then rise early in the morning to change back into the other pajamas before they woke. I had brought it with me to Hampden on a whim, sure that it would inspire some sort of nostalgia for the passionate small acts of defiance of my younger days. It didn’t. I had forgotten all about it.

“Oh, God,” I moaned, Francis’s snickers rising in frequency.

“No… Richard… it’s cute,” he managed to squeeze out in a few breaths.

“Oh, GOD,” I repeated, mortified. Face burning again. I knew he was teasing, obviously. Francis wasn’t exactly a man’s man, in the typical sense of the phrase. I knew it, and I was fine with that sort of thing. Yet I was certain that I had built up a certain armor of heterosexuality that would be obvious to everyone around me. I didn’t want anything- especially a _That Girl_ shirt- to shatter the illusion of my fully-formed masculinity.

Then it happened in an instant. Francis reached to grab the shirt for another study of its many intricacies, but in my furor and determination to keep it as far away from him as possible, I had transferred it to my opposite hand. I felt his cold, baby-soft hand grab mine that had at first held the offending cotton relic. Beyond his pince-nez, our eyes met for what felt like a lifetime. I noticed a few endearing freckles dotting his nose like constellations. My heart fluttered for some unknown reason, then sank suddenly when he released me from his gentle grip.

He, of course, smile plastered on his face, took advantage of my momentary slack-jawed state to steal back the specimen. “I tell you, Mr. Masculine, I never pegged you for the type to have watched _That_ _Girl_. But you know, I think it’s sweet. My mom used to watch it with me when I was a kid. I loved it too. Of course, I never had a _T-shirt_ ….” He trailed off when he saw me- somewhat angrily, considering the fact that I was busy being tortured by some sort of personal anguish- return to assume my spot on the floor.

His face fell, his joking manner evaporating and immediately replaced by his typical anxiety-ridden, over-apologetic state. “I’m sorry. Are you mad at me? I was just teasing, I promise. Here, we can go back to cleaning and I’ll forget I ever saw it. I didn’t know it was a big deal. I’m really sor-"

“Okay. Thanks.” I was in no mood to continue the conversation, especially with his sudden and irritating change of attitude. For God’s sake, I had only been awake for- I turned slightly to glance at my clock- barely half an hour. I remained facing that way for a second too long, and Francis darted into my new line of vision and began again to apologize, this time literally on his knees. I was about to tell him to leave when I suddenly caught a glimpse of his ruby eyebrows furrowed against his smooth alabaster face. It struck me as such statuesque pulchritude that I accidentally let out a quiet gasp.

“Richard, what is it? What’s wrong?” With this, he grabbed my hands and held them, with purpose this time. Cold and supple as marble. He was so concerned with what he perceived as my oncoming mental break that his legs were carelessly sprawled in two different directions. I was uncomfortably twisted and decided to turn completely, facing Francis, facing fear. I couldn’t bring myself to speak. Had he really been this canvas of beauty, marked with strikingly red curved daggers over his piercing eyes and splattered with light freckles, all along? How had I never noticed before? How long had it been since I said something? Moreover, if I said something, would he stop holding my hand? I was struck with the distressing revelation that I would be heartbroken when he inevitably let go again.

And then, as if he saw the truth in my bewildered eyes, or maybe he was somehow coming to the same realization about my own mundane looks, his gaze softened. Slowly, he released my hands to trace the side of my face, eyes never leaving mine. I realized that I hadn’t taken a breath since my embarrassing gasp. I was just drawing a raspy inhale when suddenly, in fluid, slow motion, Francis moved his hands from my face to the nape of my neck to the back of my head, before he stopped, staring into me. _Oh. Shit,_ I thought. He crashed into my lips. I felt his grip tighten within the many tangles that I still hadn’t successfully gotten out since I had awoken.

It wasn’t quite as I had imagined it would go (yes, I had imagined it before, slipping into drowsy daydreams in Julian’s class, staring at his softly-curled crimson mop, catching myself imagining him grabbing me roughly in a dark hallway, our lips refusing to part, hands everywhere, everywhere, biting, digging our nails into each other’s backs). Though our real excursion had begun with an abrupt collision of lips, he softened into tender, caring caresses of my hungry lips with his, velvety smooth and plush. He kissed me like I was an extension of himself, like he already knew me inside and out. I found my purpose in the gentle grasp with which his lips held mine. _Finally_ , a thought floated to my consciousness as my hands found their way to his softly curled hair. _Finally- it’s you_. Suddenly, I was confronted with a confusing sense that crept from his warm breath. I couldn’t quite figure it out. Curiously, I pulled away, still holding him.

Staring head-on and seeing his brows knit in concern again filled me with a deep rush of affection that I couldn’t fight- I brought his face to mine again and was met with the gift of his flawless mouth and, unsurprisingly, that strange sensation once again.

As I indulged in his easy embrace, I studied that odd taste, that smell- almost cloyingly sweet- what was it? It hit me, mid-brush of our lips. “Francis?” I muttered, unable to keep from smiling into his parted lips. “When did you eat maraschino cherries?”


End file.
